Spring Signs

A morning is always off to a flying start with a hunting Barn Owl. Soon after first light I was travelling north through Pilling when I saw a Barn Owl ahead, the bird using roadside posts as lookouts. It’s a dangerous manoeuvre for a Barn Owl with morning traffic passing quickly by when collisions with vehicles forms a major component of untimely Barn Owl deaths. 

My heart was in my mouth as the owl hunted along the grassy edges of the busy A588, up and over the hedgerows and then finding new vantage points from where to wait for prey as vehicles raced by. At one point the owl lifted up from the verge carrying a mouse or vole and then sped off. The owl must have quickly swallowed the prey whole because within seconds there it was again playing the same dangerous game with passing vehicles. I watched the bird hunt for four or five minutes before it disappeared over the fields and back to a daytime roost away from danger. 

Barn Owl

 

I carried on up to Cockerham where the flooded fields held interest. Most of the birds were a good distance away with lots of comings and goings, much of it sparked by the regular dreads of the 100+ Lapwings. Also here were 65 Curlew, 40 Redshank, 60 Golden Plover, 2 Dunlin and 3 Ruff, the latter being two burgeoning males and a duller, smaller female. 

In Spring male Ruffs develop their exaggerated head plumage, the two today being quite pale around the head even at a distance of a couple of a hundred yards, their colour, size, structure, scalloped appearance and general jizz marking them out from nearby Redshanks. 

Ruff - Photo credit: Foter / CC BY-SA

Redshank

There’s been a marked passage of wagtails this week, continued here this morning with a minimum of 24 Pied Wagtails on the flooded field. Circa 200 Starlings on the same fields and 6+ Skylarks, a few of the latter in song despite the cool and frequent showers. Across the way at Crimbles Lane I found 80+ Fieldfares chattering in the tree tops and a Stock Dove. 

Pied Wagtail

It hadn’t been the best morning of weather and by Conder Green I was dodging almost continuous showers but managed to find 90 Teal, 45 Black-tailed Godwit, 4 Curlew, 15 Oystercatcher, 18 Wigeon, 8 Little Grebe 2 Tufted Duck, 1 Grey Plover, 2 Spotted Redshank, 6 Meadow Pipit and 1 Little Egret. 

A tiny Sparrowhawk created something of a panic, appearing from “nowhere” then flying very low across the marsh towards then up and over the hawthorn hedgerow bordering the cycle track. It’s a superb hunting technique that Sparrowhawks and other Accipiters employ, a modus operandi stolen by the military in recent years for the design, production and perfection of “stealth” aircraft. 

 Sparrowhawk

The constant showers sent me back to Pilling where I stayed close to the car. On the flooded maize - 30 Lapwing, 60 Redshank and 1 Snipe. A long-dead Fox was not a pretty sight. 

On the shore and in and around the trees were 16 Meadow Pipit, 2 Pied Wagtail, 2 Long-tailed Tit, 2 Jay, 2 Buzzard, 1 Kestrel, 2 Greenfinch and 1 calling but unseen Siskin. 

All in all a good morning’s birding with welcome and clear signs of Spring in the wagtails, pipits, Fieldfares and Ruff. 

More soon from Another Bird Blog - read it here first.

Linking this post to Anni's Birding Blog. She'd rather be birdin' - who wouldn't?

Pilling And A Pinkie

The morning began bright and breezy with gusts teetering on the edge of being “windy”, a subtle difference that birders will recognise whereby choosing a place to go birding requires a little forethought. Pilling was the decision and where after a three hour slog around the patch the old notebook had a good few entries. 

The flooded maize received a watery top-up last night although the soggy fields didn’t need it by virtue of the regular stuff there: 160 Redshank, 45 Lapwing, 28 Dunlin, 15 Skylark and 2 Little Egret. More than a few of the Lapwings and the Skylarks were in display mode. 

Two Buzzards came from over the Fluke Hall woods, circled around for a while and then headed off in the direction of Pilling village and the mosses beyond. The wood was a bit windswept for birdsong but I did see a pair of Stock Dove in the trees, 25+ Woodpigeon feeding on the ground and a handful of Goldfinch. 

Buzzard

Woodpigeon

Beyond the wood I checked out the fields to find 18 Pied Wagtail, 6 Oystercatcher, 15 Curlew, 4 Greenfinch, 4 Meadow Pipits, 1 Reed Bunting and a couple of dozen Pink-footed Geese. 

When the Meadow Pipits flew across to the beach I noticed their arrival and calling had pushed other birds into the air, and on checking I found the pipits chasing off 3 Snow Buntings. In the ensuing melee a flock of 40+ Twite lifted off the marsh then circled around to find a new spot on which to feed. The buntings seemed to head west along the sea wall and although I spent some time trying to relocate then I couldn’t, so I imagine they carried on towards Preesall, Knott End or Fleetwood. In the strong breeze blowing along the shore everything seemed very flighty and reluctant to stay in one spot for long. 

 Snow Bunting

Heading east I found more wagtails behind the sea wall, 5 Whooper Swans, 7 Little Egret, 5 Teal, 3 Red-legged Partridge and a couple of hundred scattered Pink-footed Geese. There don’t appear to be many pinkies around at the moment so maybe many have flown north towards Iceland already. 

Whooper Swans

It was last December 2013 near Pilling Water that I spotted a Pink-footed Goose wearing a neck-collar, the collar inscribed with the letters “TAB”. I reported the sighting online and yesterday received back the following information from The Wildfowl and Wetland Trust about when and where the pinkie was ringed and all the subsequent sightings. My own sighting at the bottom of the list is the most recent. 

There’s a clear pattern to the bird’s seasonal movements. After spending the summer months in Iceland the goose migrates south, probably stopping off in Scotland. It then spends part of the early winter in Lancashire or Norfolk, but seems to spends each New Year in Norfolk. By February, March and into April it is back in Scotland feeding up for its Spring flight to Iceland. There are an awful lot of flights to Iceland and back not included in the list below. Aren’t birds amazing? 

20/10/2006 Loch of Lintrathen ANGUS, Scotland - adult female Pink-footed Goose first caught then marked with “TAB”.

15/02/2007 Wester Dalziel, Dalcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

01/03/2007 Balnaglack, Dallcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

03/04/2007 Morayhill, Dalcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

18/11/2007 Breydon Water area, Great Yarmouth NORFOLK, England 

24/11/2007 Pollard Street, Bacton NORFOLK, England 

01/12/2007 N of Sharrington NORFOLK, England 

19/12/2007 Runham NORFOLK , England 

05/01/2008 Repps Mill NORFOLK, England 

16/01/2008 Repps Mill NORFOLK, England 

23/01/2008 Thrigby NORFOLK, England 

28/02/2008 Gellybanks area, Loch Leven PERTH & KINROSS, Scotland 

09/04/2008 Lower Cullernie, Balloch INVERNESS, Scotland 

02/11/2008 Fluke Hall Lane, Pilling LANCASHIRE, England 

08/11/2008 Bone Hill Fram, Pilling LANCASHIRE, England 

08/01/2009 Preesall Park, Preesall LANCASHIRE, England 

08/01/2009 Cockers Dyke, Pilling LANCASHIRE, England 

03/02/2009 Head Dyke Lane, Pilling LANCASHIRE, England 

02/03/2009 Wester Dalziel, Dalcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

07/03/2009 Cullernie INVERNESS, Scotland 

25/03/2009 Easter Dalziel, Dallcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

30/03/2009 Easter Dalziel, Dallcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

03/04/2009 Wester Dalziel, Dalcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

19/03/2010 Wester Dalziel, Dalcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

01/04/2010 Wester Dalziel, Dalcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

05/04/2010 Wester Dalziel, Dalcross INVERNESS, Scotland 

05/11/2010 Hall Farm, Rollesby NORFOLK, England 

01/12/2013 Dam Side, Pilling LANCASHIRE, England 

The bird below isn’t “TAB”, on 1st December 2013 she was far away, the inscription read via a telescope at 200 yards or more.  I’m sure however that the bird below is an equally amazing pinkie. 

Pink-footed Goose

More soon from Another Bird Blog. And remember, you read it here first.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog.

The One That Got Away

Monday was a fine morning with lots of bird activity round about but I was stuck at home waiting for the plumber to arrive, so I decided to do a little garden mist netting. It’s the first suitable day there’s been for many months, either in terms of birds in the vicinity or a wind and rain-free day. 

But this morning there seemed to be lots of bird song, Blackbird, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Song Thrush, Robin, Dunnock and Great Tit. At the big house across the way a pair of Jackdaws busied themselves by inspecting the double chimneys as Collared Doves and Woodpigeons closely watched the action. Maybe the doves were hoping to pick up some of the sticks the Jackdaws let drop to the floor? 

Below is picture of all the only evidence of the first bird I caught, one measly feather, all that was left on the grass below where a bird lay in the net for a few brief seconds. Full marks to anyone who stops to puzzle but then correctly identifies the species from the feather before reading on - go to the top of the class. 

It’s not a species generally associated with gardens but does occur in them more than one might imagine, especially during cold and frosty weather. I was in the house and through the window saw the large brown bird lying in the net but as I sped outside in one short move, the Woodcock lifted itself from the pocket and flew over the fence and far away. The second picture is as they say, “One I did earlier”, a year or two ago, so infrequent are sturdy and strong-flying Woodcocks found in mist nets. 

Woodcock feather

Woodcock

So I had to content myself with Goldfinches on a date which may prove to be the start of the species’ Spring movement north. Another sure sign of Spring was the sight and sound of Siskins in next door’s Sycamore tree, but the few birds there were not visiting my niger feeders today. 

Siskin

I caught 6 Goldfinch, not many but a better total than of recent inactive months - 5 females and a single male. Below is a female born last year, identified as a female by the grey nasal hairs, red not extending beyond the eye and aged as last season's bird by a combination of the mixed age tail feathers and the brown edging to lesser coverts. 

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

Another young female below, this one retaining some of its brownish juvenile head feathers. The red on the face reaches the end of the eye but does not extend beyond it. 

Goldfinch

Below is a male where for comparison with a female, the red on the face reaches a good way beyond the eye.

Goldfinch

There’s more to come later from Another Bird Blog, just as soon as the plumber’s gone and we can return to a normal existence. 

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

Unseasonal Sands

It’s been a busy old week of grandparent’s callings, finding time for birding and then in-between updating a tired old kitchen. And if anyone tries to tell you that the British Builder is dead and buried, superseded by its Polish counterpart, don’t believe them; the Union Jack flies high in Knott End and Stalmine. 

So birding and blogging had to take third place for a while but now that weekend’s here I’m up and running with a little news. 

A drive north included a Kestrel at Thurnham, quickly followed by a look over the pools and creeks of Conder Green which gave much the usual stuff: 2 Spotted Redshank, 10 Little Grebe, 150+ Teal, 30 Wigeon, 5 Goldeneye, 15 Lapwing 1 Little Egret, 12 Curlew, 12 Oystercatcher and 1 Common Sandpiper. The wintering sandpiper has eluded me for weeks, hiding away and silent in the tiny creeks rather than the main tidal channel but it finally showed today. 

Common Sandpiper

At Glasson: 15 Goldeneye comprising 13 males and 2 females, 1 Red-breasted Merganser, 40 Tufted Duck and 9 Cormorants. 

Goldeneye

Goldeneye

Back at Pilling the sun came out and I set off along the usual route to find 8 Little Egrets, the Brent Goose on the marsh and the wintering Green Sandpiper on the shooter’s pools. 

It looks like the Green Sandpiper isn’t the only wintering sandpiper here as amongst the 60+ Lapwings, 125 Redshanks and 15 Curlew was a Curlew Sandpiper. I last saw a Curlew Sandpiper here on 15th November, the lack of visits during the intervening period of wind, rain and weekly shoots accounting for the lack of sightings of the bird since that date. 

Curlew

Curlew Sandpiper - Photo credit: jvverde / Foter / CC BY-NC

There were small birds around the pools and the maize field with 45+ Linnet, 2 Reed Bunting, 15 Skylark and a sudden arrival of 14+ alba wagtails arriving from the west and landing some distance away. On the pool, now less than a dozen Mallard and 2 Pintail survive the winter shoots, the original 2000+ released Red-legged Partridge now hard to come by after so many days of gunfire.

Near Fluke Hall I watched a Stock Dove in display flight and heard several species in song - Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Dunnock, Robin, Great Tit, Blue Tit and Coal Tit. 

Stock Dove

Spring must be just around the corner. Hooray for that. 

Linking today to Anni's Blog, Eileen's Saturday Blog and Camera Critters.

Is It Here Yet?

There are signs the end of the atrocious winter weather may be in sight, and Spring around the corner. It certainly felt like that this morning when the sun shone and the wind dropped to less than 15mph, almost perfect birding conditions. 

I set off for Pilling where a pair of early morning Kestrels greeted me on the roadside at Damside. In some years Little Owls have used the nest box so it looks like the Kestrels have first shout this time. 

Kestrel

I decided to give Fluke Hall a try where I was dismayed to find shooters on the maize fields and so above the high water mark, where as I understand it, the “season” for shooting wildfowl should have ended on 31st January. A small pile of corpses littered the sea wall but I was too far off to make out the species. 

Despite the loud guns there were a number of Lapwings and Redshanks on the flood, some 95 and 8 respectively, also 10/12 Linnet and 15 or so Skylarks. Later, and as I walked the sea wall I saw and heard a good number of Skylarks, some in song, others in obvious territorial disputes, with a morning total of 30+ birds. 

Fluke Hall Lane and the wood itself proved quite productive with 2 singing Song Thrush, a pair of Mistle Thrush, 2 Greenfinch, 1 Treecreeper, 2 Long-tailed Tit, 2 Goldfinch, 2 Reed Bunting, 1 Buzzard, 2 Jays, a minimum of 12 Blackbirds and 3/4 Chaffinches in song. 

Jay

By now the shooters had driven discreetly off the track in their mud spattered Land Rovers, Range Rover and Navarra so I walked the now very quiet sea wall to Lane Ends. 

A good selection of birds ensued, circa 850 Pink-footed Goose, 7 Little Egret, 3 Meadow Pipit, 1 Green Sandpiper, 1 Peregrine, 1 Brent Goose and a good number of the aforementioned Skylarks. The Brent was alone on the salt marsh and not in the company of Pink-footed Geese or Shelduck, species it might be expected to mix with.

Brent Goose

At Lane Ends it was good to hear the trilling of courting Little Grebes, an unmistakeable sound emanating from the pool hidden from view. A couple of Chaffinches in song here too. 

Little Grebe

Maybe Spring is finally on the way? If so Another Bird Blog will be there to record the details, so log in very soon.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.

A Little Post

It’s a bit of a short post today for blog readers; hopefully the weather will improve soon and enable some thorough birding to take place. 

After the overnight 100mph winds I spent a while this morning up at Knott End where I hoped to see a few wind-blown Little Gulls. I wasn’t disappointed, and in the still strong winds managed to connect with at least six Little Gulls flying into the Wyre estuary, all of them continuing to fly upstream until they disappeared out of sight. 

Little Gull

The Little Gull Hydrocoloeus minutus is a small gull of about 11 inches in length, 24–31 inches wingspan and a weight of approximately 100 grams, gull proportions which could perhaps more accurately describe the species as “tiny”. 

It breeds in Northern Europe and Asia with small colonies in parts of southern Canada. It is migratory, wintering on coasts in Western Europe, the Mediterranean and in small numbers in northeast USA; in recent years non-breeding birds have summered in Western Europe in increasing numbers. As is the case with many gulls, it has traditionally been placed in the genus Larus. It is the only member of the genus Hydrocoloeus, although it has been suggested that Ross's Gull also should be included in this genus. 

Little Gulls are not resident in the UK; neither do they spend the summer or the winter here. However, they do pass through in spring and autumn, usually April. The Little Gulls we see here in the winter are thought to be from the population wintering off the east coast of Ireland, many birds often blown towards the west coast of England, even inland during severe winter storms. 

Little Gulls also occur hereabouts in April en route to their breeding grounds around Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Baltic Sea, an area that many reach by taking a direct route across the Pennines, the North Sea and then into the Baltic. 

Little Gull

For comparison with Little Gull here’s a common Black-headed Gull, 16 inches in length, c40 inches wingspan and a weight approximately 300 grams. 

Black-headed Gull

There wasn’t much else doing, a still rough old morning and not one suitable for searching for passerines. There were 18 Turnstones, 140 Lapwings and 4 Redshanks huddled on the shore, 18 Eider defying the strong swell of the sea and the usual 2 Pied Wagtails along the esplanade. 

Turnstones

More soon from Another Bird Blog.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog.

Brief Sign Of Spring

At last on Monday a touch of overnight frost followed by a sunny day without wind and rain, and a chance to get out Pilling way for a few hours. Such has been the ferocity of the weather that my notebook told me I last walked Fluke Hall/Pilling Water on January 2nd, with in the meantime lots of sitting around the house, doing chores, blogging, and a brief but welcome respite of two weeks in Lanzarote. 

Here in Lancashire we have escaped the worse of the wet, windy and woeful winte, unlike the good people of Somerset suffering weeks and weeks of floods. And now it’s the turn of the Thames Valley to feel the pain as the UK suffers its officially wettest winter for 250 years. Roll on Spring. 

At Fluke Hall I found singing a Song Thrush, a drumming Great-spotted Woodpecker, a singing Goldfinch and a pair of Long-tailed Tits, stuttering signs of spring which quickly abate when we return to the currnet normality. A couple of Chaffinches were about the roadside trees but I heard no song from them even though the species can be an early singer. 

Long-tailed Tit

Now that the shooting season is finished the lessening traffic and disturbance along the sea wall and across the Fluke Hall maize fields may produce more birds. Today, 220 Lapwing, 8 Golden Plover, 6 Redshank, 52 Woodpigeon, 7 Stock Dove, 20+ Skylark, 4 Mute Swan, 165 Shelduck and 6 Little Egret. 

At Pilling Water I found a pair of Skylarks, the wintering Green Sandpiper again, a couple more Little Egrets, 2 Chaffinch and a single Reed Bunting. Looking into the sun I thought I could see ducks other than the few regular Shelducks and Mallards, but when I strode closer to investigate, the duck’s sluggishness and reluctance to fly was explained by the fact that the wildfowlers had yet to collect several of their floating Gadwall x Wigeon decoys. Doh! 

Reed Bunting

It was as well I trespassed over the shoot because trapped in a pheasant/partridge pen I discovered several Red-legged Partridge and a single Stock Dove. Shooters are supposed to check such contraptions regularly to see that birds are not unduly kept there without food and water, so I suspected that no one had been along for a while, even though luckily there was spilled seed to keep the birds going. I opened the door, sent the partridges packing and rescued the Stock Dove, an adult “ringing tick”. 

Until this specimen I’d only ever ringed Stock Dove nestlings so had to look up the ageing and sexing characteristics in the Ageing and Sexing Non-Passerines guide. I’m pretty sure it was a first winter bird due to lots of light brown edging on the lesser and median coverts. A wing length of 220mm gave nothing away. 

Ageing and Sexing Non-Passerines

Stock Dove

Doing It By The Book

Way out on the marsh and towards Cockerham or Cockersands were “many thousands” of Pink-footed Geese, much too far away to count. A light aeroplane sent them into the sky once or twice before they settled back down on the distant marsh. If pushed I’d estimate their numbers at 10/12,000, the picture below a small chunk of the enormous flocks out there. 

"Pinkfeet" over Pilling and Cockerham marshes

Now the shooting season is over the “pinkies” will gradually become more tolerant of humans, less prone to panic at the sight or sound of them while slowly allow bird watchers to study them more closely. I can’t wait, nor to wait for another sunny day like this one. 

Roll on Spring.

Linking today to Stewart's World Bird Wednesday.